Vancouver Island junket

"Cindy Fuller" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message news:cjfullerSPAMORAMA-
[email hidden]... <snip>

Quoted message said:

SO, sneaky devil that he is, had made dinner reservations
at a resort/restaurant called the Aerie north of Victoria.
He'd remarked as I was packing on Thursday, "You might want
to bring something nice to wear. A dress, maybe." I should
have known something was afoot when he brought a dress
shirt and sports jacket along with him. (This is very
atypical behavior--usually when on vacation we wind up at
fancy joints right after a sweaty death march in the
wilderness without a change of clothes.) The Aerie has
three fancy-schmancy prix fixe tasting menus. SO opted for
the seafood one; OTOH, my innards were still a bit touchy
and I ordered the vegetarian one. The food was good, the
location was stunning (we watched the valley below get
dark), and I was happy he footed the bill. The exchange
rate is not as good as it was last year.

The Aerie!? Holy smokes! He really went all out! Any
pictures of the food?

rona

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Cindy Fuller said:

The SO and I spent Memorial Day weekend over on Vancouver
Island, our first road trip since the Vancouver-Spuzzum-
Okanagan Valley-North Cascades run of last August. Alas,
the weekend was tarnished by the food poisoning I got in
Anacortes Friday night. The water was absolutely calm on
the ferry ride over, but my innards were convinced we
were on roiling seas. I managed to have some pho ga for
lunch in downtown Victoria. We had dinner at the Med
Grill. What little I ate was excellent. I had pork
tenderloin, SO had lamb.

Sunday we headed up the west coast of the island to Port
Renfrew. This is serious logging country. It was raining
most of the morning, but the sun came out in the
afternoon. Lunch was at the Point No Point, a small
restaurant within a rustic resort right on the ocean. It's
the sort of place where one could finish writing a novel
without having to deal with emails or phone calls. Both of
us had penne with pesto sauce. We walked around the
grounds and got some nice pictures of the shore and some
of the plants clinging to the salt-sprayed rocks. SO,
sneaky devil that he is, had made dinner reservations at a
resort/restaurant called the Aerie north of Victoria. He'd
remarked as I was packing on Thursday, "You might want to
bring something nice to wear. A dress, maybe." I should
have known something was afoot when he brought a dress
shirt and sports jacket along with him. (This is very
atypical behavior--usually when on vacation we wind up at
fancy joints right after a sweaty death march in the
wilderness without a change of clothes.) The Aerie has
three fancy-schmancy prix fixe tasting menus. SO opted for
the seafood one; OTOH, my innards were still a bit touchy
and I ordered the vegetarian one. The food was good, the
location was stunning (we watched the valley below get
dark), and I was happy he footed the bill. The exchange
rate is not as good as it was last year.

The ferry ride back to the mainland was fairly uncrowded
until we picked up the masses from Friday Harbor. They had
to shoehorn the cars and SUV's on the lower deck. The
Washington State Ferries do not have food service on board
other than vending machines, so I bought a small Nanaimo
bar at the snack bar in Sidney as a souvenir to nibble on.
HOOBOY, those suckers will put a pancreas into overdrive!
I wanted no part of eating in Anacortes after Friday's
debacle, so we had an early dinner at a microbrewery in
Mount Vernon (home of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in
April). The BBQ brisket was good, but SO's chicken was
beyond done. The waiter was nice enough to substitute ribs
and take the charge off the menu.

Now that I've finally recovered, it's back to cooking and
tending the herbs.

Cindy

Our paths must have crossed. The SBF, MIL in from Helsinki
and I headed on up to Victoria on June 1. Knowing the WSF
did not have foodservice, I came prepared. I baked some
oatmeal bisquits, filled up a cool box with cut fresh fruit,
sliced edam, some butter and sliced turkey, and packed some
OJ, coffee and tea. Boy did we get stares. I guess reading
the website prepared us.

We did Butchart Gardens, and then had dinner ( a good one at
Pescatores in Victoria). Took the BC ferry to Tawassen and
drove up to Vancouver on Wednesday. Had late lunch on the
ferry. Good service.

Can't remember the name, but had very good sushi on Robson.
Prior to that we took the skytrain down to the big mall
south of town. I am not sure what is wrong with Seattle for
dragging its collective butt, but the Skytrain is fantastic.
I spoke with a local who commutes to work on
it. Says it is always packed, and used very much on off
hours as well.

On Thursday, we walked around Stanley Park (5 1/2
miles). And had some lunch, again on Robson. After doing
Sun Yat Sen's garden in China Town, we drove on back
down to Seattle.

--
Alan

"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the relig-
ion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home."
-- James Michener

I had Dofino in Tofino.

--Blair "You had to be
there."

In article <[email hidden]>,

Rona Yuthasastrakosol said:

The Aerie!? Holy smokes! He really went all out! Any
pictures of the food?

No we didn't take pics of their food. Although if you search
the web for "Aerie Resort" you can probably find some
photos. They seem to do a good job of promoting themselves.
And this is one of those places that goes in for
"architectural food", presented in carefully constructed
sculptures on plates three times larger than required.
Personally, I think this is silly.

But the Aerie is capable of some very high-level hash
slinging. I picked the seafood tasting menu, which on this
evening included an oyster cream, a salad with seaweed and
pickled octopus, spice-encrusted tuna, sauteed morels, and
several other items that I can't recall. They brought us a
seemingly endless series of courses, in small portions.
But our waiter warned us to pace ourselves, since the sum
of these courses is a formidable meal. The only clunker
for me was the last seafood course, a piece of salmon in
puff pastry on a bed of riced potatoes, with sauce. This
was just too rich, especially coming after so much other
food. I prefer salmon in a simple prep (by itself with
only a splash of lemon, a vinaigrette, or a light glaze of
soy and ginger).

Cindy and I very rarely visit glam dining establishments.
This was a splurge. Since we have so little experience with
restaurants in this league, it wouldn't mean much for us to
give it any sort of rating. Better than The Cheesecake
Factory, yes. What I can say with certainty is that the
Aerie's location is certainly an eye-opener. Right near the
top of a mountain, with spectacular views.

--
Julian Vrieslander

"Julian Vrieslander" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

No we didn't take pics of their food. Although if you
search the web for "Aerie Resort" you can probably find
some photos.

Darn. It's not the same. I like to see what people
actually ate.

Quoted message said:

They seem to do a good job of promoting themselves. And
this is one of those places that goes in for "architectural
food", presented in carefully constructed sculptures on
plates three times larger than required. Personally, I
think this is silly.

I don't care for it much, either. Architectural food is
generally messy to eat and I hate food that's messy to eat.

Quoted message said:

But the Aerie is capable of some very high-level hash
slinging. I picked the seafood tasting menu, which on this
evening included an oyster cream, a salad with seaweed and
pickled octopus, spice-encrusted tuna, sauteed morels, and
several other items that I can't recall.

See! That's why you needed pictures!! :-)

Quoted message said:

They brought us a seemingly endless series of courses, in
small portions. But our waiter warned us to pace ourselves,
since the sum of these courses is a formidable meal.

I went out for teppanyaki last weekend and had several very
small courses (the beef served was also a small serving--
only 80g). At first I thought, "This is a rip off!" but by
the end of the meal I was stuffed (and I probably didn't
have nearly as many courses as you did). Made me think of
why Japanese people are generally quite slender. They don't
overstuff themselves at every meal with huge portions as
they do in North America.

rona

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